Psi Armor / Dark Melee Request for Suggestions

[oddrobin]

Hello! 

 

I'd love some suggestions for improvement, and/or feedback/critique on this psi/dark build I've been tinkering with for a few days.

I was mostly inspired by this psi/claws build by Sovera to motivate me to reach greater numbers (not greater than Sovera's build, but greater than what I initially started with). 

I'm only Level 42 at the  moment, but I've been enjoying this toon a lot on its journey. Looking forward to 50!

 

Tanker-Psi-Dark.mbd

Edited Sunday at 07:20 PM by oddrobin

[Warshades]

I'll offer a few points to consider:

• You may want to fit in another attack, either Shadow Maul or ToF. Your only regularly available attacks are all single target and you only have 3 of them (Shadow Punch, Siphon Life, and MG). Recharge on Soul Drain and Dark Consumption are to long for either to be considered a part of the regular rotation.
• I also wouldn't bother with using slots on Impervious Skin +regen and Regenerative Tissue +regen as those are better spent elsewhere. Psionic isn't a regen only set, it mitigates damage in multiple ways including CC from Aura of Insanity, resistance from toggles, and absorb shield from Psychokinetic Barrier. 
• Aura of Insanity shouldn't be slotted as a damage aura. It's more effective a source of damage mitigation through it's various crowd control effects. It won't proc well since it's a toggle, but self affecting procs like Entomb +absorb can work well. Slotting for mez is useful here since it boosts the magnitude of the mez effect so it can affect more than just minions. You could do 2x of the endoplasm mez/acc HOs boosted to +3 to cover boosting all of the mez effects it can inflict. I added the Contagious Confusion on the off chance it goes off sometimes and help lockdown bosses briefly, but that slot could be moved elsewhere as they wouldn't fire off with good consistency. 
• Since psionic armor at it's base is a resist set with very little DDR and also relies on several clickable powers as part of it's damage mitigation effects (Consume Psyche for regen, Psychokinetic Barrier for an absorb shield, and Memento Mori in emergencies) I would strongly recommend hitting 100% recharge debuff resist. Not having those clickies up will get you killed if you're hit with enough recharge debuffing attacks, something that is very common from mobs like Arachnos. 
• Similarly since you want those clickable powers up often, Hasten would be a good idea for psionic armor in general.
• You could consider dropping Teleport pool to be able to pick more powers up unless it's there for theme. While Fold Space is great, it becomes hard to fit into builds that want to take all of the powers from the set like psionic armor does. 
• Do not waste slots on Impenetrable Mind, you can leave it with just 1 slot and put a steadfast protection def/res unique in there. Psi armor gets additional psionic resistance from the other armors and has no difficulty capping psi resist. Impenetrable Mind doesn't offer anything else in terms of damage resistance other than psi resist which you'll have plenty of already.  
• Since psi armor already has access to some end recovery tools, I would say that Dark Consumption with its long recharge is not needed and you can swap that for either ToF or Shadow Maul depending on your preference. I would probably then swap the slotting in Soul Drain to either ToF or Shadow Maul and put the slotting in Dark Consumption to Soul Drain. I've not made this change in the build I posted, just offering an option on what to switch for another attack that can be used in a regular rotation. 

I tried to mostly stick to the original power picks you had with a few small changes. Energy Mastery was switched to Psionic. Harmonic Mind is better for reducing endurance use and Dominate provides another attack that you can slot with winter sets to get recharge debuff resist bonuses with. Focused Accuracy is relatively unnecessary since you'll often have Soul Drain up boosting your tohit. This build could definitely use more fine tuning, but can maybe offer some ideas on different ways to slot it. 

 

Tanker (Psionic Armor - Dark Melee).mbd

[Sovera]

Warshades is spot on, no notes.

 

 

For ST attacks the 'usual' rotation is Midnight Grasp, Smite, Siphon Life, Smite. You can have a much earlier rotation that is snappier with Siphon Life, Shadow Punch, Smite, Shadow Punch but it's less damaging and more appropriate for a Brute for the fast paced combat.

 

Definitely want some AoE in there otherwise you're fighting one mob at a time. I'd never skip on Shadow Maul though Touch of Fear is debatable (but I'd still try to keep it since it's what's available). But Warshades already covered this.

 

As you've already linked to the other thread I suggest looking at duplicating the slotting since I went through the whys. Aura of Insanity for example, why I didn't push for defense, and the effort to reach 100% recharge debuff with no more than one Psycho Barrier stack. Some in the thread pointed that three Hamis were overkill and they might be on to something, but it's just one slot so easy to add or remove later on.

 

[oddrobin]

Yes, I have absolutely been feeling a lack of attacks. An AoE would be a boon. And, yes, I can attest recharge is a noticeable weak spot I've been feeling needs some improvement as well. With both of you mentioning it, I'm now a believer in making 100% recharge debuff resist a top priority, and I will be getting hasten. Thank you for confirming what I've been thinking while I'm playing on both of those counts. I'm Level 43 now; still haven't gotten Dark Consumption (I've just been whimsically picking powers so far), and I am pretty sure I can live without it going forward. I do love the TP power pool, but it might be worth giving it up to be a better tank. 

Thank you @Warshades for all your input and for giving me another build option to play with, and @Sovera for your awesome inspiration and the additional feedback here.